Just in time for Thanksgiving, Mercy For Animals is rolling out a provocative pro-vegetarian billboard, featuring an emboldened turkey who declares, "I Beg Your Pardon - Spare a Turkey," to greet thousands of North Carolina riders heading from Raleigh toward Butterball Headquarters in Garner, NC. The ad is aimed at encouraging kind consumers to forgo the traditional turkey dinner this Thursday and replace it with tasty meatless fare.

Why the ruffled feathers? More than 300 million turkeys are killed in the U.S. every year - 40 million for Thanksgiving dinners alone. In nature, turkeys are protective and nurturing parents, as well as fast runners, who are able to use reason to outwit their pursuers.

Turkeys killed for Butterball are raised in unnatural conditions, crammed by the thousands into windowless warehouses, where disease, smothering and heart attacks are common. These turkeys are drugged and bred to grow so large, so quickly, that their legs are often unable to withstand their own weight. At Butterball's slaughterhouses, turkeys are roughly snapped into moving shackles and have their throats slit by a spinning blade, often while fully conscious.

Turkeys, and other fowl, are excluded from the federal Animal Welfare Act and Humane Methods of Slaughter Act, leading to institutionalized and rampant abuse that would warrant felony cruelty charges if the victims were dogs or cats.